There were two very intimate shows in Vancouver this weekend with the talented artists James Lamb & David Newberry.

The first show was on Saturday at the amazing chocolate store the Cocoa Nymph (10th & Alma) where the boys …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

After seeing Fred Herzog’s exhibition at the Equinox Gallery last month, I remembered his book ‘Vancouver Photographs’ and thought it would be a great Christmas gift.

I was sad to find out that it was out of print, and after checking the usual places like Chapters and Amazon as well as some of the art book stores, I chalked it up as a loss, it was a gift that wouldn’t be givin’.

By chance, while walking past the art gallery, I thought I’d see if the gift shop might have it ,and they did, tons of them!  They also had a huge selection of other Vancouver related books too, so it’s a great place to buy a gift for some of those hard to buy for types.  Thanks VAG!

With 20,310 artists, boasting 89,679 tracks, the CBC Radio 3 web site is the absolute ultimate authority, and the home, of independent music in Canada. Recently relaunched with some fancy new tools for members (free to join!), we’re taking advantage of what they’ve set up by bringing you a fresh batch of music every week featuring local groups who have tracks (entire albums, even!) on the R3 site.

This week we are honoured to have CBC Radio 3′s very own Chris Kelly as our guest ‘lister! Chris is the producer of Grant Lawrence’s daily radio show and the CBC Radio 3 Podcast and you might also recognize him as a member of local group, Analog Bell Service. Chris dug deep and brought us some little heard gems as well as a few familiar tunes in his playlist containing some of his favourite songs by Vancouver bands.

photo: trevor weeks

Click to listen to Chris’s playlist…

During the holidays a filmmaker in Vancouver generously lent me his old video camera and so I put it to some good use. With Vancouver acting as a hub for so many sports ranging from snowboarding to BMX and best of all skateboarding, it is not a surprise that our breakdancing scene has also been creating some buzz in the past couple of years. From my work with Vancouver Fashion Week I got to meet some established talent like Dennis “Liquid” Arriola to new talent like Jayson “Jbugz” Burdeyney. Impressed by Jbugz’s skills and having a major curiosity in breakdancing (out of my experience being a hip-hop dancer) I decided to collaborate with Jbugz and film him dancing all over Vancouver. There are also photographs to go along with this video.

Sidenote: Jbugz is from Calgary and currently part of the Soul Felons crew. He moved out to Vancity to develop him even more as a dancer by participating in battles and training both her and Seattle which is another major hub for breakdancing.

It isn’t often you might get a chance to look at Vancouver from way up high. Here are a few pics from the Vancouver Lookout at Harbour Centre on a slightly cloudy day.

A great view from the panoramic windows of the Lookout.
…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Greetings to our friends at W2 who recently had the new Big W erected atop their building! We sent a call out to our readers for their photos and got this hit back from Christian Flores who says “here’s a photo from my patio when they just raised it into the air…”:

And this one from @Atomos of the W firmly in place:

Welceom back, Big W!